He wants the US taxpayers to pay for his dream of sending a rocket to Mars. Musk may be the richest man in the world, but he does not have the money to pay for the cost of such a trip as he dreams of. What better way to get his hands on billions or trillions of dollars to try to make his dream a reality?
SpaceX Mars colonization program (colloquially also referred to as Occupy Mars)[1] is a planned objective of the company SpaceX and particularly of its founder Elon Musk to colonize Mars. The main element of this ambition is the plan to establish a self-sustained large scale settlement and colony on Mars, claiming self-determination under direct democracy. The main motivation behind this is the belief that the colonization of Mars allows humanity to become multiplanetary and therefore secures the long-term survival of the human species in case of Earth being rid of human life.[2]
Does a colony on Mars make sense?